He stared at me for a long time, dark brown eyes that still shone with youth and intelligence. He still struggled to communicate sometimes, but it was rare, at least when it came to us. Whenever he dealt with someone he didn’t know well, he was back to his usual silence. “I do accept you exactly as you are, son. But I will always believe in you, and your mother and I both believe that you’ll come back from this and be the man you were destined to be. I will never, ever give up on you.”
6
Dex
Once I finished feeding all the wires through the wall of the entertainment center, I pushed the furniture back to block it. All the consoles were hooked up and ready, all the ugly wires in the rear invisible, and I set the new laptop on the coffee table, which had all the parental controls activated. I locked the door behind me and walked out.
In the hallway, the new girl stood there, holding a piece of paper in front of her like it was a treasure map. She had long brown hair pulled back in a slick ponytail, and it was so long that it still reached past her tits. Like my mom, she wore dresses and heels, and she probably hated the attire as much as the other girls did. I couldn’t imagine working all day in heels. “You look like you need help.” I walked toward her down the hallway as I shoved the keys into my pocket.
She lifted her gaze and looked at me, having beautiful emerald eyes that seemed to have their own luminance. She was a petite thing, her heels giving her some height but not nearly enough to be eye level with me. She had to tilt her head back, her chin up, just to look at me. “I can’t even hide it, can I?” She chuckled then looked down at her paper again. “I was supposed to grab the dry cleaning from Mr. Garret, but my key isn’t working in the door, so I must be in the wrong residence.”
“Mr. Garret is 55C. You’re one level up.”
“Wow, a totally different floor.” She brought the paper to her face to cover it in embarrassment. “I swear, I’m a smart chick. I’m just used to working with patients and organizing paperwork and stuff. This is a whole new territory for me.”
“No judgment.”
She lowered the paper and folded it again. “Thanks. I wouldn’t want Cleo to know how much I’m struggling.”
“She already knows.”
She cringed. “I guess word travels fast, huh?”
“No,” I said with a chuckle. “She just knows everything. I don’t know how she does it, but she knows everything while it’s happening—even if it’s on a different floor. She doesn’t have eyes in the back of her head, but eyes all over the place.”
“Yeah, she seems on top of her shit, twenty-four seven.”
“Except for lunches. She’s notoriously bad at that.”
When she gave a chuckle, it was a cute sound, those plump lips pulling back to reveal perfectly straight and white teeth. She had thick eyelashes that were dark with mascara, making her eyes stand out even more. She wore a lot of makeup like the other girls and my mom because it was professional, but I could tell she didn’t really need it. “I pack snacks every day now. But at least I’ll lose some weight on the job.”
I didn’t think she had any weight to lose, but I never commented when women said things like that because it wasn’t my place to decide how they should look. My net was pretty wide when it came to the opposite sex, so I didn’t really have a type, at least not when it involved plain ol’ banging. “And Cleo isn’t the kind of boss that’s going to think less of you for struggling. She’s really patient, and she’d rather help you become the best you can be than give up on you.”
“Yeah, I can tell she’s a special person. During my interview, she asked a couple hard-hitting questions, but she’s also motherly at the same time. Like, I felt like I could just talk to her about anything immediately. Hard to explain.”
It wasn’t hard to explain because I already understood. “She’s the best.”
She smiled. “It’s nice seeing a man who doesn’t have problems taking orders from a woman, who respects her, who doesn’t have an ego or anything.”
“Oh, I have an ego,” I said with a smile. “Just a different kind of ego.” I winked then walked around her to the elevator at the end of the hallway.
She walked beside me, using a quicker stride to keep up with me. “Yeah?”
“An ego outside of business hours, you know what I mean?” I winked again and hit the button on the wall so the elevator would retrieve us.